Japanese Space Bot Headed for ISS

A small Japanese humanoid robot, named Kirobo, is bound for the International Space Station, where it will join the crew as "communications robot". The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Dentsu, Inc created the Kibo Robot Project, based on a commercially available robot known as Robi. Kibo's design was created by Tomotaka Takahashi of Robo Garage. Toyota worked on the project too, providing natural language support for the bot. Apparently the "communication" the robot will be in charge of is speaking tweets sent from Earth to Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. Two identical robots have been made, Kirobo, who will go into space and Mirata, who will remain on Earth for PR and educational appearances. Read on to see a video of the Kibo robot on its first micro-gravity training mission.